


Starburst

by allamaraine



Category: Star Trek: The Next Generation
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-02
Updated: 2017-03-02
Packaged: 2018-09-27 23:03:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 1,994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10055867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allamaraine/pseuds/allamaraine





	1. Chapter 1

It all started with Sito Jaxa.

A crush really, nothing more than that. Or at least, that’s what she told herself. Harmless. A shy girl with a cute nose and beautiful long silky hair sitting in the back of the lecture hall (Composition 201, Leslie will always remember. The professor was a lanky, enthusiastic Denobulan whose somewhat strange antics belied his tough grading. A gut class this was not), Sito seemed to shrink in on herself whenever anyone spoke to her, especially the professor. But she was brilliant with words, Leslie knew, from reading Sito’s papers and essays. Peer review, the professor had said, leading to uncomfortable squirms and sighs all around the room. For Leslie, however, this was the moment that she realized perhaps this crush wasn’t so little. 

A surprised Sito stared at her wide-eyed. “You really think it’s that good?”

“Good? Sito, this is amazing! I wish I could write like this!” She could solve any math problem that came her way and was always tinkering, fixing, inventing… these things came to her as easily as breathing, but poetry, art - that was much harder. 

Sito blushed and murmured, “They’re just stories my mother told me,” as she took her PADD back. A smile snuck its way out, though, when Leslie asked her to coffee. Leslie wanted more: more stories and more of that smile. 

So she listened and learned, about Prophets and heroes, about the beauty of the Eastern Province in springtime, about ancient Bajoran lightships with their golden sails. Then, one night, as Sito lay curled against her, she learned about food shortages and the sadistic cruelty of Cardassian soldiers and cold, dark cargo holds that promised the only way out. For the first time in her life, she realized that perhaps the Federation was not always right.

“It’s complicated,” said Picard. But then he was a captain. That was his answer to everything. “The Cardassians are a sovereign people-”

Her mother’s jaw tightened, a sure sign of Beverly’s disapproval. “So are the Bajorans.” 

Picard sighed and so it went. 

Yet they never seemed to regret their service in Starfleet. They believed in the Federation and what’s more, they believed in her and in what she could achieve. They provided her with every opportunity possible - no other Starfleet cadet could say they had sat at the helm of the Enterprise. To toss all that away felt like a slap to their faces. So she stayed.


	2. Chapter 2

With a deeply furrowed brow, Jaxa stood in front of the mirror and ran her forefinger down the ridges on the bridge of her nose. “I hate my nose.”

Leslie looked up from her reading, surprised by this sudden pronouncement. “Why? I love your nose. I think it’s cute.”

Leslie could see Jaxa’s face through the reflection in the mirror. Her expression made it clear that that was the wrong thing to say. Jaxa turned to face Leslie with an exasperated huff. “It’s not… that. I’m just… tired. Tired of the looks I get from people. Like I’m not real.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I don’t expect you to. You’re Terran.” Jaxa sat on the bed beside Leslie. “Besides, you never looked at me that way. But to a lot of people, I’m a symbol, a charity case, something to be pitied.”

Leslie wanted to protest but her words sounded hollow even in her own mind so instead she simply held Jaxa’s hand.


	3. Chapter 3

“Fuck, it’s cold!” 

“What’d you expect?” Leslie grinned at Josh, who was shivering even under his layers of sweaters and scarves. “This isn’t exactly Risa.”

“I love it!” Jaxa spun around, arms outstretched, snowflakes landing on her tongue and in her hair. Leslie laughed, caught up in her girlfriend’s enthusiasm. Jaxa had been reluctant to come on this trip with them to Calgary. 

“But I don’t know how to ski!” She had protested. 

“Well, now’s the time to learn. C’mon, it’ll be fun! And it’s only a transport away - I promise, if you hate it, we’ll come right back.” But of course, she didn’t. Jaxa took to skiing with gusto, proving to be more skilled at it than Leslie by far - not that that was particularly surprising. Leslie was never all that athletic. She simply liked the adventure of traveling with her friends. 

Without warning, a snowball came hurling through the air, hitting Jaxa square in the back. Her yelp of surprise was answered with a laugh of triumph from Nick, who had popped up from behind a nearby snowbank. “Why you-”

Another snowball, right in the shoulder. “Gotta be faster than that, Sito!” 

“I’ll show you fast!” Jaxa bolted towards him, alarmingly fast despite the snow and her heavy boots. Now it was Nick’s turn to yelp as he ran away from her, while Josh and Leslie laughed. 

“Aren’t you going to help?” he yelled over his shoulder.

“Hey man, you started it!” Josh shouted back. He looked back at Leslie. “She’s going to destroy him.”

“I know,” Leslie responded with serene pride. 

For a moment, they both watched in silent amusement as Jaxa and Nick pelted one another with snowballs, missing more often than not. Josh huddled into his scarf, his voice muffled by the thick wool. “Sito’s changed so much since freshman year. Remember when you first started bringing her around, she wouldn’t say a word?”

Leslie nodded. Truth be told, neither she nor Jaxa had had an easy time fitting in with the other cadets at first. Only Jaxa’s problem was she never talked and Leslie’s problem was that she talked too much, about things most people didn’t care about: namely, all the pet projects she had lying around her dorm room, much to the annoyance of her first year roommate. She’d missed Data and Geordi fiercely that first year, missed how much easier it was to talk to them. Worse than that, she cringed to remember how inadvertently arrogant she was. _Well on the Enterprise…_ Stars, how did anyone deal with her back then, much less Jaxa? 

“You were good for her, I think. But she was good for you too - got you to shut up every once in a while.” 

Leslie whacked him on the arm, but she was laughing. He wasn’t wrong. She became a much better listener because of Jaxa. At that moment, Jaxa let out a big cheer. They looked over to find Nick’s face covered in snow and his hands up in full surrender. “Uncle!”

Jaxa frowned. “Uncle?”

“It’s an expression!” Leslie called out, “It means you won!”

Jaxa shook her head. “Terrans are so weird.” 

Nick threw a friendly arm around her shoulders as they walk back over to Josh and Leslie. “But you love us!”

“Some of you anyway.” Jaxa spun out away from his arm with a grin then promptly planted a kiss on Leslie. 

“Oh so that’s how it is!” Nick exclaimed in fake-shock. 

“That’s how it is,” murmured Sito, kissing her once more.


	4. Chapter 4

Leslie was pinned to the floor. Again. 

“Prophets, are you bad at this!” exclaimed Jaxa. She was straddling Leslie after having thrown her for what must have been the hundredth time.

“Ever think maybe I lose on purpose?” Leslie waggled her eyebrows suggestively.

Jaxa rolled her eyes as she released Leslie. “Come on, be serious. You have to know how to protect yourself!”

“I know, I know.” She stood and brushed herself off. “It’s just that I have a very distracting partner.”

Jaxa allowed herself the tiniest of smiles. “No, your real problem is that you think too much. You always do. Now,” she moved herself back into a fighting stance. “Watch my eyes.”

Leslie nodded, holding her arms up in a defensive position. Punch one-two, kick three-four, block, block, dodge. Jaxa murmured encouragement with every successful move, upping the pace as they went. Soon, Leslie found herself on the floor again, but this time, she swept a leg out, catching Jaxa behind the knee. Jaxa looked more surprised than hurt when she fell, then after a moment, she laughed. “Now that’s what I’m talking about!”


	5. Chapter 5

The five of them stood proudly in a line with beaming faces and gleaming uniforms as their flight instructor read their names out to their fellow cadets. He then handed Nick the Rigel Cup, a golden trophy shaped like an old fashioned Galileo-class shuttlecraft. Nick, always the showman, lifted the trophy aloft. Their classmates cheered and Leslie felt a thrill go through her. Josh clapped Leslie on the back, “We did it! I can’t believe we did it!” 

On his other side, Jean laughed and said, “I told you we would!”

Nick passed the trophy down so they could all get a chance to hold it before the end of the ceremony, when it’d be whisked away to be put in the big case at the entrance of the flight school, next to previous Rigel Cup winners. As expected, he gave a hammy, humorous but blissfully short speech on behalf of his crew, then they were whisked off the stage for the next part of the awards ceremony.

For a brief moment, they all stood in silence looking excitedly at one another before bursting into a raucous chorus of congratulations and hugs and laughs. After a few minutes of this, Nick held up his hands. “Guys! Guys!”

They looked at him.

“You know what this means right?”

“What?” asked Jaxa, breathless.

“We’re ready… for the Kolvoord Starburst!”


	6. Chapter 6

In the end, Sito was the only one who stayed. Nick had borne the brunt of their punishment, yet it seemed now that perhaps expulsion was the easier option.

“It’s too much for me, Sito,” said Jean. “No one will talk to us, no one wants anything to do with us… and I can’t say I really blame them.”

“Is this how you feel too?” Sito turned to Leslie. The look in her eyes was desperate, pleading. Leslie didn’t have to be telepathic to know what Sito was saying. _Please don’t go_. Her heart aching, Leslie nodded in agreement with Jean. The guilt ate at her still, probably always would. Truth was, she felt like she didn’t deserve to be in Starfleet anymore, but she couldn’t say that out loud. Sito’s voice hardened when she spoke again. “I see.”

And so, since she couldn’t stay in San Francisco and she couldn’t bring herself to return to the _Enterprise_ , Leslie drifted. It wasn’t difficult finding work for a talented young engineer and pilot, and eventually, she ended up on a cargo freighter, the Xhosa. Captain Yates was no-nonsense, but kind and didn’t ask any questions, giving Leslie room to grieve in silence. Working as they did along the Cardassian border, with several Bajorans on board, the crew was largely sympathetic to the Maquis. She stayed quiet and listened to their stories, wondering more every day how it was that Sito could believe so much in the Federation, when they had failed her people for decades.

Sito never answered her letters.

Beverly, on the other hand, wrote constantly. She never asked Leslie to come back, but she didn’t have to. It was there, in every word, every line, every story. _Please come home._ Instead, Leslie wrote back with funny gossip about her crewmates and the bustling space stations where they’d trade with Bolians and Ferengi and Bajorans, trying to give her mother a little less to worry about, though she was doubtful that it was working. Beverly knew her too well for that. 

Then came the letters about Sito. About how well she looked when Beverly performed her physical when she first arrived. About how proud Worf was of her, how good of a security officer she was. About how she was making friends with Alyssa (no doubt Beverly’s main source of gossip in this regard). 

Then one more, short and painful: _Killed in action_. Those three words she read over and over again, as if it might say something different if she did.


End file.
